Various articles or products are often fed into distribution systems to transport or move those articles or product to one or more downstream processing stations. For example, in the food packaging industry, frozen French fries can be fed into a distribution system that directs frozen French fries onto one or more conveyors for packaging at a downstream location. Typically, the frozen French fries are fed onto a linear conveyor that has a series of gates at various locations along the conveyor. Each gate leads to a downstream packaging station that sorts and weighs the French fries for packaging (e.g., bagging). As the French fries are transported down the conveyor, the leading French fries enter the first open gate that is encountered. After a certain amount of French fries passes through the first gate, fewer French fries enter that gate (i.e., the first gate can close or otherwise restrict entry) and the leading French fries move further down the conveyor until they reach another open gate. Product that reaches the end of the linear conveyor without entering into an open gate can be dropped onto several different linear conveyors to change the conveying direction of the product and return the product to the beginning of the linear conveyor.
Linear distribution systems as described above, however, have a number of shortcomings. Because the gates are spread out along the length of the linear conveyor, the product is generally only fed to one gate at a time. This reduces the efficiency of the available downstream processing stations. Moreover, while product is being directed to a first gate, processing stations downstream of other gates shut down or enter a stand-by mode until the first open gates fill up with product. When these packaging stations come back online or re-start, they are more likely to jam or otherwise experience difficulties than those machines that are running more regularly.
In addition, because the upstream gates are always fed with product first the processing stations associated with those gates tend to receive significantly more product than the processing stations associated with gates further down the line. Thus, over time, the packaging stations receive unequal use and wear out at different rates.
Another problem that linear distribution systems encounter is that product must often be redirected back to the beginning of the distribution system. When product reaches the end of the linear conveyor without being directed to a gate, the product is dropped onto the various return conveyors for reintroduction on the linear conveyor. These drops can result in unnecessary breakage or damage to the product.